I will try to follow the advice that a university president once gave a prospective commencement speaker. 'Think of yourself as the body at an Irish wake,' he said. 'They need you in order to have the party, but no one expects you to say very much.'

Anthony Lake

Anthony Lake (born April 2, 1939) is an American diplomat, political figure, and academic. He has been a foreign policy advisor to many Democratic U.S. presidents and presidential candidates, and served as National Security Advisor under U.S. President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. Lake is credited with developing the policy that led to the resolution of the Bosnian War. He is currently a faculty member at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, holding the chair of Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy

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